Going Through Changes
by Norroen Dyrd
Summary: A young Breton girl's carefree childhood comes to an abrupt, cruel end, and, unknowing, she embarks on a path that will change the future of Tamriel.
1. Chapter 1

The morning burst in on him through the open window, in a wild, hot wave of sunshine and birdsong; he stretched himself with an good, jaw-straining yawn, and not allowing the temptingly soft bedclothes to coax him into going to sleep again, leaped out of bed, flexed the muscles of his arms and back, and trotted off into the back yard to pour on himself a bucket of icy spring water from the well.

He had grabbed his razor on the way, and before heaving the bucket up and giving himself a wash he steadied it on a broad tree stump and peered closely at his reflection, preparing to shave. 'Lookin' good today, Oracio old boy,' he said, grinning, and his reflection grinned back at him, broad-cheekboned, red-haired, green-eyed and altogether content.

On his way back into the house, shivering and shaking his head like a wet dog, he came across his father-in-law, who was shuffling about on his bleary-eyed, puffy-faced morning inspection of the household. 'Morning, Etienne, friend of mine,' Oracio called out to him, with the usual mixture of respect and good-natured mockery, 'You might be interested to know that the lark is on the wing, the snail is on the thorn, the Divines - whatever the number - are in their heaven, and all's right with the world'.

The old man snorted and chewed his lips disapprovingly. 'Easy for you to say,' he grumbled his customary monologue, 'I am trying to put the family business back on its feet after that damn war ruined it, while all my heirs do not even concern themselves about it! Your wife busies herself with fishing for dress designs and court gossip from Daggerfall, my second daughter bores the Divines with her constant complaints, and you, the only young man in the family, do nothing but frolic around in the wilderness after butterflies!'.

Oracio threw back his head and gave a loud, hearty guffaw. 'It's called adventuring, oh father-in-law of my heart,' he said at length, wiping the tears out of the corners of his eyes, 'And remember, we agreed that when you die or go senile - which I am sure won't happen any time soon, as Zenithar needs such a fine specimen of a merchant to uphold all he stands for here on earth, - then, and only then, will I bind myself to the counter and devote the rest of my days to sweet-talking distrustful customers... For now, I have my freedom. Which reminds me, I still have supplies to gather. Ta-ta!', and, with a joyous spring in his step, he made his way towards the little storeroom that he had converted into a makeshift Alchemy laboratory where he kept all the junk he needed to take on his journeys and occasionally blew things up.

The old man watched his broad, bare, muscular back disappear in the doorway, shaking his head and muttering to himself.

Etienne Piemont's had been a thriving business, but after the war he was forced to move from the comfort of the heart of Daggerfall to a small, sleepy town on the very border between High Rock and Skyrim, where, after two months of most persistent courtship, mostly involving abundant gifts and tuneless serenade singing, the local adventurer, bounty hunter and general jack-of-all trades, one Oracio Saavedra, managed to win over the old man's younger daughter Gervaise, to the utmost bitterness of her much less good-looking sister Louise, who was destined to remain unmarried and would later turn to the overly-pious worship of the Divines, as spinsters often do.

Oracio, with his odd-sounding name - though he did claim to be 'as Breton as back-stabbing and fancy food' - with his ridiculous sideburns the colour of wet brick, his loud laugh, his healthy appetite, and the disturbing good-naturedly sly look in his cat-like eyes, was far from being the dream suitor that in her hours of leisure - which were many - Gervaise had often pictured kneeling before her; she had accepted his vehement proposal only, as she put it, to be rid of the nuisance, and tried to distance herself from her husband as much as possible. Even the birth of a daughter - whom Gervaise firmly decided to be their first and last child - did not make them closer. For, the moment the squirming little addition to the family tree stopped clinging to her nurse's skirt and showed first signs of wakening intelligence, it became clear that she was nothing but a miniature female version of her father, with the same red hair, the same green eyes, the same early love for causing explosions and mixing alchemy reagents, and the same odd way of talking to people when you never knew whether she was joking or serious. The worthy Aunt Louise, of course, felt obliged every now and then to have her say regarding the girl's education, but Oracio always firmly told her that she would not hinder him 'in the great quest of spoiling Meme rotten'. Meme was the pet nickname the girl was commonly known under - short for Remedios, her real given name, which Oracio had insisted on, despite all the objections from the rest of the family. 'It is a good name, Remedios,' he had said, 'The best name a girl from the Saavedra bloodline can have. That was the name of one of my most renowned ancestors, you see, a sorceress who lived in late Third Era. She played an important part in stopping the Daedric invasion, and I often heard tell that she was the mistress of Martin Septim'.

As of that morning, the bright, and sunny, and frabjous morning, when Oracio woke up to see that all was right with the world, he and Meme had been the best of friends for almost fifteen years. There were jokes that only the two of them could understand, words that only the two of them used, memories that only the two of them shared, and places that only the two of them called special. When Meme was old enough to see the wonders of the wilderness, Oracio started to take her with him, each time further and further away from home, and there was no way the females of the family could stop them, however scornful and indignant they were, seeing young Remedios grow up into something no more ladylike than a cave bear.

And that morning heralded the start of precisely one of those days when the father and daughter would wander off on an adventure, and both of them had been looking forward to it for quite some time. So, after packing his knapsack in his lab, Oracio climbed up the steep wooden staircase to the attic, which Meme had all to herself. She was still asleep when he entered, lying on her stomach, arms thrown wide apart and long, unruly red hair spread over the blanket like a cloak. Oracio tiptoed up to her bed, smiling gently to himself, and tickled the bare soles of her feet. The girl shifted a little in her sleep, mumbling something incoherent and striking the pillow with her hand, as if swatting at a bothersome gnat.

'Rise and shine, the sun of my horizon!' said Oracio in a sing-song voice.

Meme tore open her eyes and turned over, gaping blankly at her father.

'It's go-exploring-with-Daddy time!' he went on, beaming, 'Remember, we need more taproot for our potions, and for that we'll have to take down a spriggan or two - tough task, but I can't keep my girl from testing that new spell she's learned, now can I?'.

Meme sat up in bed, her clumsy, colt-like knees outlined beneath the blanket. 'You know, Da,' she said, rubbing her eyes with the back of her fists - a childish gesture that Oracio loved so much, 'I've been meaning to tell you... I'd rather not go with you today. I mean, one time wouldn't hurt, would it?'

His face fell - something that happened quite rarely, 'Of course, child of mine - your wish is my command... But - why? We are always having such a great time out there, in the great wide open...'

Meme shrugged her bony shoulders impatiently, 'It's nothing. I just thought I'd spend some time with Ma for a change. We always leave her all alone, the poor thing'.

'I understand,' Oracio mumbled, looking rather pitiful, like a loyal dog that had been yelled at by its master, 'Well, I'll be off then... See you in the evening'.

'See you in the evening, Da'.


	2. Chapter 2

'Ma,' Meme began in a firm, determined voice shortly after breakfast, 'Make me look beautiful'.

Gervaise, who had taken up some rather pointless embroidery, cast a bewildered look at the girl, who hovered in front of her, rocking back and forth on her heels and picking at the hem of her rather untidy dress, which, to the disgust of her mother and aunt, did not reach below her thighs. 'Meaning?' she asked, her neatly thinned eyebrows raised just the way court ladies raise them - or so she thought.

'Oh, you know,' Meme replied, waving her hand vaguely, 'You read books and things. I want to look beautiful, with my hair done up and face painted and all, and I need your help'.

'Ah, I understand now,' Gervaise said dryly, mentally rejoicing that her little beast of a daughter was finally seeing the light, 'It will require a lot of effort, but I will see what I can do'.

When Oracio returned home from his spriggan hunt that night, Meme wasn't there to meet him. In fact, she nowhere near the house at all - if someone were to look for her, they would have found her in a small grove on the opposite side of town, all trimmed and washed and covered with several layers of powder and stuffed inside one of her mother's old frocks, sitting in the grass and holding hands with a pale youth with hollow cheeks and eyes so dark that they seemed like two black holes which sucked in your gaze, making you unwilling - or unable - to ever look away. She had met him several days before while she was out catching luna moths with her father and got separated from him. The youth had appeared in front of her out of nowhere, his silhouette dark and rather menacing in the gathering dusk, but after the first few seconds of fright she had extended her hand to him as a token of friendship. Meme and the youth had talked for a while, and he had expressed an ardent wish to see her again, and now she was doing her best to make their second meeting to look like those she'd read about when taking a sneak peek at her mother's books. She was immensely proud of her unusually well-groomed look, and her new friend seemed to have sensed that, for there was no end to his compliments. His words, spoken softly and slowly, while his black eyes never left her face, made her heart flutter against her ribs like a little caged bird that longs to be set free; she was old enough to realize what his intentions might be, and the realization that grown men (for he looked quite a bit older than her, though it was hard to determine his exact age) already found her interesting - well, this realization excited her so much that her head swam a little and she could feel a pleasantly warm blush somewhere around her neck and chest. He asked her to tell him more about herself; she answered mechanically, her lips moving with barely any thought, her whole self sinking deeper and deeper into his eyes. Finally, after what seemed both a fracture of a moment and an eternity, he rose to leave and, his voice now temptingly lowered, offered to kiss her as a sign of farewell. She gave him a vigorous nod, suddenly out of breath.

She didn't realize at first what needed to be done, her lips remaining unparted - but then, giggling at her own silliness, she followed his lead, and the long, scorching kiss that followed pinned her to the ground. 'Will I ever - again...' she gasped when he finally let go.

He smiled, and his smile was like honey trickling slowly from a spoon, 'Of course. I can only see you after sunset, however. Before that I am... otherwise occupied'.

She nodded blankly, the meaning of his words hardly registering in her mind, which was full to the brim with the brewing hops of happiness.

Before dissolving without a trace into the evening gloom, he leaned towards her once again and whispered, 'We shall meet soon, my love,' - and these words were the last drop of the heady golden liquid that seemed to have flooded Meme's heart and soul. When he left, she threw herself onto the ground and screamed with sheer joy until she was hoarse. Then she got up, swaying a little, and made her way home.

'It has been a fortnight, Meme,' Oracio said sadly, looking up at his daughter across the alchemy table, 'You don't go adventuring with me; you borrow those silly love stories from your mother; you fuss about your looks, though you never seemed to be bothered before; your mood changes by the minute; you've grown so distant, so absent-minded... Tell me - is there... Are you... Are you seeing someone?'

'So what if I am?' Meme snapped, 'What is it to you?'

Oracio looked stung, 'Well, you could have told me... You never had secrets from your old Da before...'

She shrugged her shoulders - in the past few days she had been doing this while talking to Oracio far more often than he felt necessary, 'Well, now you know!'

'Is there more you'd like to share?' Oracio asked, painfully aware of his humiliatingly pleading intonation, 'What is he like? How do you get along?'

'Look, Da,' Meme said sharply, her voice suddenly icy, much like her mother's when she was angry, 'This is my business, not yours. I am not another you, I have my own self too, and I am tired of living your life. I don't belong to you any longer - I belong only to myself!'

'And to him,' Oracio said quietly, but she was already gone.


	3. Chapter 3

'I'd love to see where you live,' Meme said dreamily, her head resting on his chest as they lay side by side gazing at the stars, 'But you see... My family have been snooping around lately... I wouldn't like them to find out. Well, my grandfather only cares about his shop... My mother, though - well, I hinted to her that I might be in a relationship, and she was quite pleased actually, but to her a relationship is just holding hands and kissing a little, and that's kind of not exactly what we've been doing lately...' the two exchanged a meaningful smirk, 'And then there's my aunt... She's one of those religion-obsessed old maids, you know - she'd force me into shackles for as much as looking at a young man!' Meme deliberately made no mention of her father; ever since the little scene in the lab, he had been avoiding her, spending time in the wilderness or helping Etienne run the shop - and quite frankly, Meme wished he wouldn't, because more often than not she felt like apologizing to him and he wouldn't give her a chance.

Meme's pale-faced lover smiled a slow, languid, treacly smile, his thin fingers toying with a strand of her hair. 'You are an aspiring alchemist, aren't you?' he said, after pressing his lips against the back of her neck, 'Your little problem may easily be solved with a sleeping draft. Your family lost in the dream realm, you will come and go as you please'.

'But... I don't know how to make a sleeping draft!' Meme protested.

He smiled again, 'This does not matter, my love. I will provide you with everything you need'.

The following evening, when the whole family - except Oracio, who had gone off to loot some ruin or other and was not expected back till morning - was just about to get together for supper, Meme announced that she would prepare the meal herself, her cheeks flushing bright crimson and one of her arms thrust behind her back, something small glinting glassily between her tightly clasped fingers. Ushering Gudule, the hunchbacked, wheezy-voiced old woman who was the family's only servant, out of the kitchen, she banged the door shut behind her and took to clattering pots and pans with such vim that all the others had to cover their ears. 'This is going to be some meal,' old Etienne said, rubbing his hands together.

That night Oracio returned far earlier than he had expected, weary and discouraged - without Meme, adventuring somehow just did not seem to give him the same thrill, and after some hours of aimless wandering he had decided to turn back home. As he approached the town, he registered the deep blue tint of the sky, with the outlines of the moons, pale like strokes of half-transparent paint, and a lone star twinkling gently just over the inky black rooftops, but his heart remained dull, untouched by the serenity of nature going to sleep - now that he had no one trotting at side, pointing at the landscape and making excited comments, it no longer seemed to him that all was right with the world. With a heavy sigh, he entered the house through the back door - and froze on the treshold, his chest pierced suddenly by the icy arrow of foreboding. The house was deadly quiet, which he knew to be unusual, even at this time of night. This was the hour when Louise was supposed to be shaking the whole house with her shrill, wailing prayers to the Divines, and Etienne was supposed to be shuffling around grumbling at all and sundry, and Meme was supposed to be singing snatches of songs or arguing with her mother. Instead, the only sounds Oracio could make out, his head aching with the effort of listening to emptiness, was the creaking of a door loose on its hinges and the sleepy song of a solitary cricket.

'Hey!' he called out, forcing himself not to feel alarmed, 'You there? Are you dead - or just asleep?'. The laugh that he tried to accompany his rather pathetic joke with sounded hollow and hoarse, and was swallowed by the silence like a pebble thrown into deep, stagnant water. Muttering a curse through gritted teeth, Oracio raced up to the nearest door - that of Louise's room, where she had a small altar with the symbols of the Divines carved in its sides - and flung it open. As he stepped inside, he almost tripped over something large and dark that was lying sprawled across the floor. He leaned to see what it was - and cursed out loud. It was his sister-in-law, her not too fresh complexion now ashen grey, her fingers stiff and crooked, her lips parched, bloated and frighteningly purple, and her eyes bulging in silent pain. Oracio dropped down on his knees beside her and grasped her wrist. The pulse was still there, thumping weekly against his fingertips, as though begging for help. He searched frantically through his satchel, gulped down a potion that increased magicka and started casting a healing spell on Louise's motionless body, never stopping to catch a breath, till she finally stirred and whispered, her chest heaving, her fingers clawing at the floor, 'The others... They... ate... more...'

Suppressing the natural urge to bombard her with questions, he lifted up her limp arms and thrust about half a dozen on potion bottles into her hands. 'Drink these,' he said curtly, 'I'll be back'.


	4. Chapter 4

Gudule the servant proved a little more informative than her mistress; he found her sitting propped up against the wall, her head drooping onto her chest, surrounded by a pool of vomit. While Oracio was still casting a healing spell on her she started a long and barely coherent narrative about the family having dinner and then, suddenly weak and sleepy, short of crawling to their quarters.

'It was the girl, I tell you,' she muttered, her mouth sagging and drooling, 'She put something in that soup... Something to make us all feel sick... She did, the little witch,' Gudule was not too fond of Meme, just as she was of fresh air and bright sunshine and loud noises, 'But I knew better... I stuffed my fingers into my mouth to make the foul brew come out...'

'Yes, yes,' Oracio responded absently, peering over Gudule's shoulder at the door of the room where he usually slept, together with his wife and father-in-law; that was the door he had heard creaking when he entered the house - the hinges must have been set loose under the weight of a person, or even two persons, clinging on to the door for support, their legs suddenly numb and jelly-like, the world drifting away from them into milky white haze...

'That girl is not one with this family, oh no she isn't,' the old servant went on in a low, monotonously malevolent voice, 'If I hadn't been there to help poor Miss Gervaise with the pains of labour, I would have doubted the she had a single little droplet of Piemont blood at all...'

'Stay your tongue, woman,' Oracio snapped at her, his mind finally snapping back to what his hands were doing and what his ears were listening to, 'I have patched you up well enough, now get up and go help Miss Louise! _Move it!'_

With a great deal more grumbling and spluttering, Gudule heaved her misshaped body up from the floor, with some, rather reluctant, help from her master, and shuffled off to the household shrine. Jerking his head to shake off the persistent echo of her wheezy soliloquy, which was still scraping at his mind, Oracio stepped towards the creaking door, his heart contracting at the thought of what he might find beyond it.

'Come on, Etienne, friend of mine, breathe... It's such an easy thing to do... Just give it a try... Don't be so hesitant... If a new-born child can do it, so can you... Damn you, old man! _Breathe! _Breathe, or I will slay you!'

Oracio grabbed the large, grey-haired ragdoll that once had been his father-in-law by the shoulders and gave it a violent, desperate shake, obstinately refusing to believe that all his efforts were in vain, that Etienne Piemont would never again be up to the simple task of breathing. When, at long last, the truth penetrated, he let go of the old man, letting him thud dully onto the ground, and staggered to his feet, knowing that now he had to look for Gervaise and fearing doing it.

She was lying prostrate, agonizingly motionless, on top the creased mess of the bedclothes. With a wild, sob-like cry, he darted towards the bed, flung himself on top of Gervaise and, cupping her face in his shaking hands, kissed her with such passionate force that he bit her lips, distorted, unyielding and cold, so very, very cold, their ice not melted even by his hot, choking breath. She was just as obstinate as her father when it came to breathing - no magic, no pleas, no caresses could coax her into it; she remained still and cold as stone, a masterfully sculpted statue to pain and horror, frozen in the midst of a struggle with the poison that had been entwining her body from the inside with it spiky tendrils, like a monstrous, nightmarish plant. Oracio pressed her limp body to his chest and let out a long, tortured wail; after years of constant petty bickering and misunderstanding upon misunderstanding, he finally came to realize how much he loved this woman, for all her vanity, and shallowness, and reserved, self-centered aloofness... and the weight of this sudden revelation pressed upon his shoulders like the weight of all the mountains in the world. She had struck him once, upon her family's first coming to their town, as the most beautiful, refined being he had ever seen; her radiant image, one of the greatest treasures he had discovered during a lifetime of adventure, had burned into his mind and stayed there for all eternity, overshadowing all the flaws her character might have had. As he held her in his arms on their wedding night he had felt like a blacksmith's apprentice, used to forging nails and horseshoes, trying to handle an intricate jewelled necklace; when she was pregnant with Meme he had fussed around her more than anyone else in the family, much to her exasperation, not letting so much as a dry tree leaf fall on her shoulder - he would have put her in a glass cube if given the chance. He had always known she considered him a boor, a ruffian, a bothersome creature of the wilds intent on upsetting her established, comfortable way of life - and yet, in his heart of hearts, he had always hoped, less and less ardently over the years, but still, that one day she would understand, one day she would stop turning away in disdain from the gateway to his and Meme's world - and then, they would take her by the hands and lead her in, and never, never, let her slip away again... This hope was dead now, dark and shrivelled like a faded rose, the petals of which crumbled into dust beneath his fingers. For the first time in his life, the hot, prickling feeling in his eyes was not caused by overly hearty laughter...

He came to his senses when the echo of Gudule's voice returned to him again, reanimating his stupefied mind like a conjuration spell reanimates a corpse.

_It was the girl, I tell you... She put something in that soup... Something to make us all feel sick... _

Those were, of course, just the ramblings of a half-senile old woman slowly returning to this world from the threshold of death - but could there actually be some truth in them? Could Meme have had some part in this? His precious, sweet, innocent Meme, the sunshine of his horizon, the fruit of his love for Gervaise - poisoning her own family members? Her own _mother? _

He laid Gervaise's head back on the pillow, passed his fingers gently over her eyelids, closing her glassy, horrified eyes, and with one final kiss on the forehead, turned away from her and made his way towards the attic.

Meme's room was empty. He felt both relieved - he would have fallen into the embrace of Sheogorath if there had been yet another body - and alarmed, for this gaping, silent nothingness that answered him when he called his daughter's name meant that she could be anywhere...

With a vague feeling of unpleasantness at intruding into his dear little girl's private corner of the universe, he compelled himself to rummage through her things in search of anything that might qualify as clues.

Her belongings were few, and yet she had still managed to make a mess of them, a cheerful, childish, bright mess, almost unaffected by the few embellishments she had attempted lately under her mother's influence. After turning over a few mismatched bits of colourful cloth and half-finished drawings - most of which turned out to feature a gaunt, dark-eyed young man with pronounced cheekbones, a discovery which made Oracio shudder with sickening uneasiness - he came across one of the copies the local map that he and Meme had compiled themselves. The map's edges were tattered and smeared with charcoal, and as he peered closer, he saw that the image of one particular cave, lost in the middle of the forest surrounding the town, had been circled with a thick black line, in one rapid, energetic movement of the hand, with so much pressure put on the bit charcoal that it tore the paper in several places. Oracio frowned; he had been meaning to clear that cave for quite a while now, what with the reports of strange comings and goings in the woods around it - and now, it seemed, was just the time to do it.

'You foolish little girl,' he whispered, both tenderly and scoldingly, folding up the map and tucking it inside his clothes close to his chest, 'Whatever have you gotten yourself into?'


	5. Chapter 5

'So you weren't joking when you said you lived in a cave...'

Meme was both frightfully excited - the wild run through the moonlit forest, with her family left behind, put to sleep thanks to her amazing skill in alchemy, and her mysterious lover waiting ahead, had been the most thrilling experience in her life - and just the tiniest bit disappointed; she had put on her best dress, and this place seemed far too dank and murky to show it off.

'How could I have been joking?' the young man smiled, his lips slowly parting to show a glimpse of his teeth, rather unsettlingly long and sharp for such a handsome face, 'My kind almost always live in caves. Or ruins. Or cemeteries. Places of death, darkness, and _decay...'_

He breathed the last word, hotly and hoarsely, right into her ear, coming up noiselessly behind her and touching her shoulders with her fingertips; as always, the feeling of his flesh against hers sent a shiver shooting, lightning-like, along her spine - but this time, it was not the usual shiver of inebriated, ecstatic pleasure.

_'Your kind?'_ she asked slowly, her heart sinking.

'But of course,' he replied, passing his tongue over his lips; his languid smile steadily grew broader and broader, till it turned into a predatory leer. Meme edged away from him, fear unfolding within her heart like a venomous flower with petals of ice, and swivelled her head to peer searchingly into his face. In a matter of a few wild, staggering seconds the romantically roseate picture of happy love that Meme had created within her mind shattered into a thousand pieces, which turned over and shifted and fell together to form a completely different jigsaw, dark, terrifying, blood-freezing. _'Vampire!' _This word flashed through her brain like a fiery arrow. _'Vampire! Oh gods, what have I done?'_

With a frightened, piteous squeak, like a mouse grasped in a cat's claws, she made a movement to run - but he barred her way, his bony fingers tearing into her bare forearm, leaving dark, ugly, swollen bruise marks, and bit deeply, greedily into her neck.

The white-hot pain turned her whole body into one shrill, throbbing scream; she strained her lungs to the point of almost pleasant exhaustion - but when her first scream faded away, he pressed his free hand against her mouth; the trapped sound thrashed against his fingers, unable to burst free, and as the unrelenting hand pushed it forcefully back down Meme's throat, it almost made her suffocate.

_'Da, oh Da...' _she thought frantically, sinking into the waters of Oblivion, dark, so dark, darker than the vampire's eyes, _'Please, Da, wake me up! I am having a horrible nightmare! Wake me up, Da, and let's go hunt spriggans!'_

'Enter Oracio Saavedra, adventurer, bounty hunter and general jack-of-all-trades,' the vampire announced mockingly, the intent gaze of his bottomless eyes never leaving the thunderstruck face of the wild red-haired man that invaded the privacy of his lair, 'Is this how you still introduce yourself to people who want you to deal with certain problems - like the one my family once presented? Do you remember how they fell at your hand, one by one? I concealed myself in the shadows, fear having overcome me, and watched my kin turn into ashes... Now you have at least some idea of how it might have felt like for me...'

Oracio stopped in his tracks, gaping at the gaunt, seemingly youthful figure in front of him. He had immediately recognized his face as the one in Meme's drawings - and now he dawned on him why looking at those naive images had unsettled him so much. He cursed to himself; he had always suspected he hadn't cleared out that one crypt completely.

The corners of the vampire's lips twitched slightly, 'Well, little man, aren't you going to fly into a customary rage and ask me what I have done with your daughter? Or has tracking me down through the wilds cooled you off a little? In the latter case, I will take the liberty of answering a question before it is asked. Your little Meme - what an absolutely foul way to call someone, by the way! - is safely tucked away into a coffin in one of the delightfully dark corners of this cavern; once three days have passed, I shall set her free, and together, we shall start a new clan to continue the bloodline of those you slaughtered... Mark the tragic irony, Oracio my friend, while you still have time; for now that I have told you the plan of my glorious revenge, you shall follow your dear family to Oblivion...'

'Says who?' Oracio smiled grimly, conjuring up a half-transparent, glowing sword.

The vampire hissed and made a slow, wave-like gesture, as if conducting a band of musicians. At his command, the many bones the floor of the cave was strewn with - it could have been a wild beast's den before the new dweller moved in - rose into the air, bound together by strings of pulsing blue light, and assembled into a single carcass of a towering, otherworldly creature, a gigantic skeleton made out of several dozen smaller ones; it advanced on Oracio, the eyes in its many skulls glinting, spider-like, and brought down its arm, which was a twisting maze of countless human bones, in a tremendous, thundering blow, making Oracio stagger.

The vampire was gazing lovingly at the monstrosity he had raised, and when the dust settled, he said softly, 'Nice touch, my pet. Now, _crush him'._


	6. Chapter 6

There certainly was some thrill, some wild, daredevilish excitement in all that circling around the slippery cave floor, his heart beating in the rhythm of a war drum, his eyes fixed on the nightmarish bony bulk in front of him, every single sinew of his body strained in an effort to keep dodging its great, groping arms, as well as the ice spikes sent at him by the creature's master, who was apparently beginning to get worried that Oracio was too quick for the two of them. The vampire did get him once - too distracted by aiming a fireball at the gap between the bones of the monster's chest, where a ball of swirling light could be seen in place of a heart, Oracio temporarily let his other adversary out of his sight, and became aware of his presence once again only when a shard of scorchingly cold ice pierced his leg, paralyzing it entirely. As he tumbled down to the ground, he had but a fracture of a second at his disposal to shoot his bolt of flames - and he made full use of it. The vampire barely avoided betting squished like a ripe fruit by the mound of bones crushing down deafeningly all around him, cloaked in a cloud of throat-scraping dust. Leaping over the remains of his grotesque minion with inhuman agility, he charged at Oracio, fangs bared, unsheathing a curved dagger with dark liquid glistening on its blade.

They struck simultaneously, Oracio lifting himself from the cave floor with quite a bit of effort - for the freezing touch of the spike had begun to spread up his leg and on towards his heart - and plunging his bound sword into his attacker's chest, and the vampire stabbing Oracio in the shoulder, the black of his eyes lighting up with the wild red glare of vengeful triumph.

He let go of his dagger's handle the moment it sunk into Oracio's flesh, strength failing him; the glowing wound over his heart grew wider with each passing second, as if he were a sheet of paper set on fire. They stared into each other's eyes, petrified, one lying on the ground, a lush crimson blossom swelling up on his shoulder, and the other leaning over him, with the ghostly bound sword forming a link in between. The vampire's expression was feral and twisted, all sanity wiped from his features by the first breath of Oblivion; Oracio's was calm and shrewdly mocking, just is it had been on those frabjous mornings, lost in the mists of time, when all was right with the world.

'Two strikes at the heart in one fight,' he remarked quietly, forcing a shadow of smile, 'Not bad, eh? Say... On your blade... Is that the same poison you tricked my Meme into making?'

The vampire shook his head. 'I know many,' he mouthed and, with a soft sizzling sound, crumbled away into a smoking pile of embers.

Oracio smirked faintly and, sitting up, shook the vampire dust off his clothes, his expression mildly repulsed, as if he were dealing with something as petty as, say, dandruff, and thrust his hand deep into his trusty satchel; after quite a bit of noisy rummaging, he jerked his hand upwards, pulling out a bottle of snowberry solution for treating frostbites and a precious little phial containing a potion that cured all diseases, including the filth with which vampires infect their victims' blood to turn them into their own kind. When he lifted his catch closer to his eyes, he saw that there was blood oozing down his fingers - he had cut himself on broken glass.

'Damn it,' he muttered to himself, rubbing the snowberry extract into the wound on his leg, 'So my last bottle of poison cure got smashed. Tough luck. Well, I think I still have time...'

The whispering darkness and the oppressive heat were gone, and the dull pain in her neck was slowly ebbing away. The liquid that someone, having lifted up her chin and gently parted her jaws, was pouring down her throat, tasted like fresh forest air after a thunderstorm; it flowed through her body like a mountain river, washing away the terror and shame and despair that had tainted her mind.

Her blurred vision slowly coming into focus, she gave a half-strangled gasp; the cave was still there, which meant that she _hadn't _been dreaming, that her world _had _shattered, irrevocably... Her lips curled up in a childish grimace of pain; she burst into tears - but her father wiped them away with his thumbs, smiling. His face was drained if all colour, and his eyes were surrounded by dark, bruised circles, but their gaze was warm and tender, and there were bright sparks dancing in their green depths.

'Da...' she whispered falteringly, 'Is he... Did you...'

He nodded, 'We had your usual final duel between two old, uh, acquaintances... You see, many years ago, before I met your mother, I was given a task to get rid of a clan of vampires - his family. And he came back for revenge...'

It took quite some time for his words to sink in. And when they did, they raised a raging maelstrom that tore through her whole body, making her shake all over and choke on dry, hysterical sobs.

'He used me!' she groaned, burying her face in her father's chest and gripping him by the front of his clothes with suddenly vice-like fingers, '_He used me! _And I... I actually... I was so blind and stupid and so full of myself...'

'Hush, sweetheart, hush,' Oracio murmured soothingly, stroking her twitching shoulders, 'I understand... Vampires are hard to resist, especially if one hasn't come across one of them before...'

She looked up at him, with a strange, hard glint in her reddened eyes, 'Tell me... That sleeping draft... It wasn't a sleeping draft at all, was it?'

Oracio turned away from her, apparently hesitating, 'Well... The thing is...' He coughed sheepishly and hurried to change the subject, 'Tell you what, rose bud: you be a good little mage and run outside and shoot a nice bright fire bolt into the sky so the townsfolk can come to our aid... Your old Da has been punctured a bit by his worthy adversary, and will need some help getting back home... And when you return, I will answer all your questions... Promise'.

She stretched out her hand and brushed her fingers gently against his unshaven cheek, making him meet her gaze again; when he did, she squinted at his pallid face with a mixture of suspicion and anxiety. He gave her a small encouraging smile; she nodded curtly and got up from where he had laid her after lifting her from the coffin. Oracio watched her trot off, and for a moment, it seemed to him that her gait was almost as carefree and colt-like as it had been in the days before clouds started gathering on their horizon.

She was safe now, out of harm's way... He had rescued his little girl... True, there still was a tragic revelation to be faced, but now that the rift between them had closed - and he was absolutely positive it had - he would always be there for her, and side by side they would weather any storm... He shaped his lips, numb for some bizarre reason, into a content smile; the effort took him what felt like several centuries. His thoughts were moving slowly as the wheels of a cart stuck in a muddy puddle, and from the subject of his daughter and their future happiness they crawled, snail-like, to the poison on the vampire's blade. Oddly enough, it did not seem to have affected him - he was feeling quite chirpy, only a bit tired... Perhaps he could close his eyes and doze for a bit while Meme was away...

He was dead when she came back.


	7. Chapter 7

As a small child, while she was being bathed - by a hired nurse, naturally, for her father was too clumsy and her mother too refined for the task - Meme would lower herself into the tub, so that there was a thin layer of water over her face, and observe the world through a blurred, prickly, pearlish-grey soapy veil, while all the sounds around her would echo, muffled and strangely, excitingly distorted, in her submerged ears. It felt somewhat the same way now; the moment she realized why her father, sitting on the cave's floor with his back propped against the wall and his head drooping onto his chest as if he was fast asleep, would not respond to her frantic cries and prods and nudges, she sank into an invisible washtub, vast as an ocean and bottomless as the waters of Oblivion, and the murky foam got into her ears and eyes, preventing the outside world from reaching her senses. There were dim figures of those who had seen her signal and come rushing to the cave, there were twisted faces, frozen in shock, and there were voices, anxious, persistent, demanding answers - voices that she could barely hear, just as she could barely hear her own voice when she moved her numb lips to shape a dull, emotionless phrase, _'I murdered my family'. _Those four words were the only bit of information the townsfolk managed to get out of her - and the last thing they ever heard her speak.

The town that had been home to Meme's family for many serenely happy years until disaster struck was - normally, when there were no vampires on the loose - so quiet and so small, too, that it did not even have a special dungeon-like place where _criminal scum_ like Meme could be contained (the common treatment for petty wrong-doers being a heart-to-heart talk with the most respected members of the community). Of course, Meme could be transported to a bigger settlement for judgment, but the surviving remnants of her household - namely, Louise, frenzied almost beyond human form with righteous anger, and Gudule, always hovering behind her mistress's back and nodding meaningfully to her every word - demanded that the 'heartless, conniving, murdering little brat' be punished for all her sins here and now. Since the aforementioned most respected members of the community, joined by the town's only guard, a round-bellied, untidy little man with eyes that were perpetually bleary with sleepiness, flatly refused to put Meme to death, and since the Divines - quite impolitely from Louise's point of view - just as flatly refused to take heed of her urgent demands to strike the girl down with lightning, it was finally decided that Meme be locked up in the only building in the vicinity that could, remotely at least, qualify as a jail... the House of Krex.

It had once been a mansion of a moderately wealthy Imperial family, but the owners moved away many years ago, after their son, a strange, aloof little lad as the town elders described him, too keen on magic than was good for him, had accidentally - or perhaps not - burned down one of its wings. The greater part of the house remained standing, however, a solemnly silent, lifeless carcass with gaping, hole-like windows and young trees growing out of the roof; its shadow loomed ominously on the town's horizon, and even though no one had died in the fire and Oracio, after a bit of exploring, had not established any otherworldly presence in the house's charred shell, it was a sort of convention to consider it haunted. Quite a prison for a young murderess of very questionable sanity.

The front door had long since rotten through, so it had to be replaced, and the many gaps in the half-ruined walls had to be sealed, with wood, stone and magic. While the town's artisans and amateur sorcerers were at work, Meme was kept under house arrest, watched closely by the sleepy guard and Louise, who was doing a far better job than he was - always alert as a vulture that sits perched on a dry tree in a wasteland, never taking its eyes off a poor traveller who is slowly expiring of weariness and starvation... Finally, when the bizarre cross between a jail and a tomb was fully prepared to receive its only occupant, Meme was escorted by the guard right to its threshold, accompanied by a small procession of sympathetic townspeople - for despite the burden of guilt that pressed heavily upon her shoulders, her current stupefied state was enough to melt quite a few hearts (there were rumours in town that the poor girl had been possessed by the Daedra and was now stricken with shame and grief at what she had done); these good souls formed a living shield to protect her from the other, less numerous but much more violent part of the community - from those who favoured the torch and the pitchfork and would have revelled in the sight of Meme being staked through the heart or burned alive or plummeted with stones. Meme herself, however, was equally unmoved both by pity and repulsion felt towards her, expressing no gratitude for the faltering attempts to comfort her and not backing away from the groping hands that sought to tear at her clothes or to scratch out her eyes. She did not display any signs of comprehension while the guard explained to her that food was to be left for her once a fortnight by the town's shepherd on his way to the pasture, below one of the windows that had a sturdy lattice, still intact, with gaps broad enough for her to poke her arm through and take whatever lay on the windowsill; nor did she move her hand to wipe her face when her aunt, held back by two strong men, spat at her as a sign of farewell. But when everyone that had come to gawk at her finally left, and the brand new locks of the brand new door slid in place after them, and she was left all alone in the empty, half-burned house, she threw herself on the floor and burst into tears for the first time since her father's death.


	8. Chapter 8

_Dear Festus,_

Back when I had a life, I was told once that your family lived here long before most of the people in our town were even born - so this must mean that now you are either dead, or quite, quite old... Though you can't be older than me - I feel as if I have aged thousands and thousands of years... In any case, wherever you are now, whatever has become of you, I am sure you won't mind me writing on the back pages of your journal. I am amazed that I found it practically undamaged, among all this rubble, and that I managed to discover an inkwell, too! - with dried ink that I mixed with rainwater; and writing is such a wonderful thing to do when you are stuck doing nothing for all eternity... So, here I am, adding my own entries to yours.

Oh, and before my thoughts wander off somewhere, I have one more reason to add for starting a journal - it will keep me from losing the scraps of mind that I have left. At first I thought, why bother clinging on to my mind? Why bother thinking? Why bother breathing? It was not like I had anything left to make thinking and breathing worth the effort. I wanted to just lie on the floor, face down, till the gods would be good enough to come and claim me - but after a few hours, a rat ran over my arm, and I shrieked the greatest, mightiest shriek you could ever imagine! And then I laughed. Yes, I actually laughed. Because there I was, with all my world trampled over by that great, blundering brute that calls itself fate, finding enough strength to be frightened of a _rat! _And with that laugh, the water was spilled from the bathtub - you wouldn't understand about the bathtub, but I do, so I won't explain it here; there is not too much space anyway - and I was able to clearly see the little corner of the universe I had at my disposal. Not much of a corner, frankly speaking. No offence intended, but you have obviously seen this house in its better days. Though I must say one thing in its defence: it is such a darn good place to explore. I think I visited this marvel of a ruin before, together with my father... There, I spelled it. Father. _Father._ _**Father.**_ Just so you know, this is not my lousy excuse for ink that I am writing this word with. It's the blood of my heart. Father. Da. Daddy. _Father._ _**Oracio Saavedra,**_ wed to Gervaise, nee Piemont, sired one Remedios Saavedra. Remedios, daughter of Oracio. Oracio, father of Remedios. All right, I think I am going to lay off writing for a while. Can't hold the quill with all that aching in my chest.

I am back. It has been a few days actually. I have been mulling over the idea of starting a journal at all, and now I am even more convinced than ever that it's a must. Sometimes I have these fits of violent boredom when I run about the house stark naked or something. Must find an occupation. Sooooooo... Where was I? Ah, yes. I visited your house before, in that long-forgotten era when people called me by my name and the world had no boundaries - but I never fully explored it. And suddenly, I got landed inside it, with aeons and aeons of spare time for discovering its secrets, and these secrets, these delicious temptations kept me going for a long, long while. At one moment, I would think, 'Ah, here is a nice beam of wood across the ceiling. Perhaps I should hang myself on it?', and seconds later, 'Ah, here is a nice dark corner. Perhaps I should take a peek at what's in there?'... Must be the adventurer's instinct - still alive in me though there will be no more adventuring ever again.

I know your house from top to bottom now. Every nook and cranny, every creaking floorboard and every charred stone. I know it by heart like a good long poem. Speaking of which - I also found your spellbooks, mostly untouched by the fire. Wonder why you left them behind when your family moved. Maybe you didn't need them any longer, what with your skill at magic. Quite the comments you left between the lines for me to read and scratch my head at. A child prodigy, am I right? Born with a wand in your hand? Well, thanks to all this time on my hands I was able to practice day in, day out, moving furniture with telekinesis spells, freezing those annoying raindrops that insist on seeping through the roof at most inopportune times, reanimating dead rats... So I think I am as good as you now. I mean, as good as you were at my age. Whatever that might be... Time has been rather tricky to keep track of. I think I might reserve a page of this journal especially for drawing lines to mark the end of each day. Because it's uncanny how days and weeks and things keep slipping out of my grasp! Well, sure, I am a female, so there are certain signs by which I can determine that a month has gone by - was it proper, writing that in a journal that had once belonged to a boy? Ah, who cares, it's mine now! - but months have a way of piling up behind your back, and then you turn around and gasp! You realize that it's been a year, or two years or more! I remember being rather dumbfounded when the old shepherd who used to bring me food - I would watch him come and go from one of my many hiding places, such a treat! - was replaced by a small boy with buck teeth and freckles. I was so taken aback that I even allowed him to see me, which is not a thing I normally do when something humanoid comes to visit - I must be getting attached to your lovely home like a beast gets attached to its hole, wanting to burrow deeper and deeper down, away from the world. The lad made a regular leap back when he saw me; perhaps, with the passing of time I had become a sort of legend, and he did not really expect to see anything alive stirring within the ruin - and I imagine that my face must really be a sight to see, what with poor nourishment and little light and fresh air... At least, I do myself the courtesy of washing myself with any water I can find, mostly in the rain barrels in your inner courtyard, - I abandoned this petty practice for a while, but then took it up, again, not surprisingly, for the sake of having something to do... Anyway, the poor little thing burst into some apologetic explanation that his grandfather was 'weak in the legs' so he had taken over herding the sheep and, as a little pleasant bonus, feeding me. Something tells me that if he is the shepherd's grandson, I had to have recognized him... But I did not. Faces do not answer my summons when I try to fish them out from the depths of my memory. I remember - what was it, a few pages back? - I was terrified of putting my father's name on paper, let alone recollecting his face, but now I would give anything - which is a bit of a hypocrisy, since I have nothing to give - just to catch a glimpse of him in my dreams! Can you believe that I cried this morning because I could not remember what he looked like?

I haven't written anything in a while now. Mostly I have been whiling away my unlimited leisure time by reading through what I have already written, over and over. And here is one strange thing that I came across: I am torn apart, split, tossed between two extremes like a boat in a storm. Let me bore you with a little self-analysis.

I lost everything, through my own unforgivable stupidity. _**I lost everything.**_ I have nothing to live for. And yet I don't feel like dying.

I have a horrible darkness lurking in my past, tainting my conscience, clawing at my soul... And yet I concern myself with trivial, down-to-earth matters, such as food, and getting washed, and darning my clothes. Makes me feel guilty for some reason. When you read about people suffering in books, you somehow can't imagine them combining their inner torment with chewing on a loaf of bread or rubbing their arm pits with soap - rather spoils the image.

I am imprisoned for an indefinite time inside a dreary, half-burned-down house; it's discomforting, and oppressive, and, well, downright creepy! And yet, I love this house; I have grown to regard it as part of my very being and to count you, the child of its owners, whom I will never, ever see in person, among my best friends, together with a sizeable amount of inanimate objects that I have become rather attached to.

I miss the world outside, especially when I browse through the half-charred volumes scattered around the house or try to test my mental strength by reliving my past; what is more, now that I have brushed up my knowledge of magic, I am sure that I could have blasted a hole in any of the barriers they have surrounded me with in one snap of my fingers... And yet, I know that I will never do it. Not only because if I ever do burst free, I will be shunned as an outcast, probably even hunted down, but also because I seem to lack the willpower to actually try...

Hello there, Festus, missed me? How long has it been since my brilliant study of the interesting specimen usually known as Remedios Saavedra? I am losing my grip of time again. Did you know that the boy who brings me food is now a broad-shouldered youth, starting to grow a modest little beard? It must be at least ten years since I was thrown in here... So this means that I am - roughly - twenty-five years old. _Twenty-five!_ I could have been married by now; I could have started my own career as an adventurer, bounty hunter, wandering mage; I could have achieved so much to make my father proud of me! Instead, _**I killed him.**_

Sorry, Festus, it was awful of me to tear a hole in your - our journal like that. Won't happen again. Don't feel like writing anything else. Sorry.

The boy stopped coming. It doesn't bother me, really, because I am not much of an eater and I have been storing away most the things he brings. Should last me long enough. But I just wonder...

The town is restless, so restless - I can feel it. The very air is somehow... different, even in your forsaken home.

I am getting uneasy, Festus. For the first time in years! There is an odd glow coming from the direction of the town, day and night, like great bonfires burning, and sometimes I hear echoes. Echoes of screams. _Screams,_ Festus! Perhaps there is another war...

I don't know what's gotten into me - what should I care about those people? They are part of the past, they belong on the other side of the bridge that I myself burned down. They will never accept me if I come back, and I do not deserve to be accepted.

Never before have I felt the urge to break out of my prison so strongly. I can do it; I know the necessary spells, and my binds must have been weakened after all these years. What say you, Festus? Yes, I know you have no way of answering my question, or even hearing it, for that matter, but still...

The screams have stopped. It unsettles me. I am coming out.


	9. Chapter 9

The front door turned out unbelievably easy to do away with. Meme smirked to herself as she watched its ashes settle down at her feet. So, for the past few years at least, the real prison had been inside her own mind, with no guards save for her memories and night terrors and haunting thoughts tugging her mind in two opposite directions. She stepped across the threshold, almost staggered by the contrast between the dank, decaying atmosphere of the ruined house and the crisp freshness and vibrancy of the great beyond. For a moment, she recollected her old wanders with her father - the flashback pierced her heart like a dagger, and she had half a mind to back away into her prison never to stir out of it again; but this time, her longing to see what was going on in the town proved to be stronger, and, conjuring up a blade just in case, she made the first, slightly faltering steps along the path that led from the House of Krex to the town's outer streets.

The first thing that struck her when she finally reached the first buildings was the emptiness. As far as she could determine, it was midday - but the streets were uncannily deserted, and so quiet that her ears ached. The doors of most houses were ajar, like gaping mouths of dead bodies, with not a breath of life escaping from within. As, bound sword clasped tightly in one hand and a small bluish light flickering in the other - a closed flower bud, ready to unfold at any moment into a Ward - she moved, slowly, cautiously, from the outskirts to what was customarily called the town's main square, the silence grew almost unbearable. It rang inside her mind like the shrill, throbbing note of a torn lute string, much more oppressive than the drowsy silence of the ruined house had ever been. Finally, after a considerable amount of mental struggling, Meme took an encouraging breath of air and strode inside one of the seemingly abandoned dwellings.

It took her all the strength she could muster to wake up her voice that had been lying curled up somewhere between her collar bones all those years, stirring only on those rare occasions when she felt like talking to herself or to one of her memories - which, in her view, was _not_ one and the same thing. The sound that she eventually managed to squeeze out sounded more like a cry of a wounded bird than anything else. She cleared her throat and tried again, this time producing a fairly decent, though scrapingly hoarse, 'Hello! Anyone alive?'.

Her half-strangled call seemed to have alerted something inside the house, for Meme could have sworn that she saw something stir in one of the dark, dusty corners - too dusty, incidentally, to signify anything good. She drew closer, passing her tongue over her lips and resummoning her ghostly blade, - and froze, an invisible icy hand gripping her heart tight in its bony fingers and then letting go again. The shadow that she had almost taken for the house's overly cautious inhabitant, was in reality nothing but her own reflection in a tall cracked mirror, which stood propped up against the wall, adorned with cobwebs like with some bizarre garland. For a while she stood in front of it, transfixed, silent tears of crushed vanity streaming down her face. She had altered almost beyond recognition, reduced to little more than a distorted shade of the carefree little redhead she vaguely remembered herself as. Her body was nothing but bones, thrown together in a heap and then stitched carelessly to one another to form a remote semblance of a human figure; her face was a pallid mask, some parts of which - mostly round the eyes and cheekbones - had been pushed in while the wax was still soft; and the rich copper of her unruly hair, which she would sometimes cut clumsily with whatever even remotely sharp objects she could find in her prison, now had quite a few strands of fine silver woven into it. Before she finally tore her gaze away from this alien image, Meme replaced her readied Ward spell with an ice shard and fired it at the mirror's centre, where her reflection's heart was supposedly located. The echo of shattering glass was the only sound that filled the emptiness within her soul as she exited back into the desolate streets.

The tidal waters of depression ebbed away, however, to give way to other feelings, when, after mechanically turning a corner or two, she came across one of the bonfires she had seen from her prison, wounding the night with their scorching glare. It was now extinguished, a great black mound piled across the street, barring almost any progress. The adventurer's instinct rearing inside of her once again, Meme peered down to investigate the bonfire - and bit hard into her lips, sealing them together like a dam to resist the pressure of a torrent of nausea. They had been burning bodies.


End file.
